It’s been nearly two years since Ben Affleck last appeared as Batman in Zack Snyder’s DC Extended Universe. The Oscar winner has moved on from Gotham City after a polarizing run as Bruce Wayne.
In a recent GQ profile, Affleck surprisingly had a positive outlook about playing Batman.
“I had a really good time,” Affleck said. “I loved doing the Batman movie. I loved Batman v Superman. And I liked my brief stints on The Flash that I did and when I got to work with Viola Davis on Suicide Squad for a day or two. In terms of creatively, I really think that I like the idea and the ambition that I had for it, which was of the sort of older, broken, damaged Bruce Wayne. And it was something we really went for in the first movie.”
Despite poor reviews, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice became a box office hit ($874.4 million worldwide). However, things began to crumble for Affleck and Batman in the much-maligned Justice League. Affleck believes his age and the idea of a darker Batman played a part in the character’s downfall.
“What happened was it started to skew too old for a big part of the audience,” Affleck explained. “Like, even my own son at the time was too scared to watch the movie. And so when I saw that, I was like, ‘Oh s—, we have a problem.’ Then I think that’s when you had a filmmaker that wanted to continue down that road and a studio that wanted to recapture all the younger audience at cross purposes. Then you have two entities, two people really wanting to do something different, and that is a really bad recipe.”
Affleck also struggled with alcoholism while filming Justice League, which became an “excruciating experience” for him. However, that’s not the main reason why Affleck will not play another superhero.
